Deja vu All Over Again – Chinese Spy Balloons Recall Japanese Fire Aerial Bombardment of B.C. Forests

It’s uncanny how history mimics if not actually repeats itself.

Last month’s excitement over a series of so-called scientific research balloons from China provided an eerie reminder of the Second World War. That’s when the Japanese attempted to ignite our forests with incendiary bombs delivered via the air currents of the aptly-named Japanese current.

Hundreds were launched and many of them made it to the Pacific West Coast, from Oregon north through B.C., even as far east as Kansas. They caused the death of a picnicking family but, amazingly it seems to us today, little in the way of forest fires.

It’s a fascinating story and I’ll tell you all about it next week in the Chronicles.

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PHOTO: A collapsed Japanese fire-balloon that landed near Bigelow, Kansas, Feb. 23, 1945. —Wikipedia Commons